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The UK's Official Top 20 biggest selling love ballads of all time

We reveal the best selling love ballads that get the UK feeling loved up.

Ah, Valentine's Day – bunches of flowers, boxes of chocolates, a glass of champagne and a romantic dinner, but let's not forget the music to set the mood!

The Brits are a soppy lot, and many of our biggest selling singles of all time are love songs. To celebrate Valentine's Day we've put together a romatic playlist for you here, and we count down the UK's favourite love ballads – the Official Top 20 best sellers. ❤

1: Love Is All Around – Wet Wet Wet

Summer 1994 belonged to this song, by Scottish band Wet Wet Wet, which spent an astonishing 15 straight weeks at Number 1 – the second longest consecutive run at the top of all time, and equalled in 2016 by Drake's One Dance. Taken from the global movie phenomenon Four Weddings and a Funeral, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, Love Is All Around was the Wets' third Number 1.

The track was a cover – it originally got to Number 5 in 1967 for the Troggs. The Wet Wet Wet version has sold 1.9 million copies! "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed." Smooth, Andie. Smooth.

2: Unchained Melody – Robson and Jerome

Unchained Melody hay be over five decades old, but it still has enduring appeal, and is much-covered, reaching Number 1 four times for different artists. Coming off the back of their starring roles in ITV's military drama Soldier Soldier, Robson & Jerome's version was a double-A side with a cover of Vera Lynn's White Cliffs of Dover and stayed at Number 1 for a whopping seven weeks. Sentimental sorts couldn't get enough of it – it's sold 1.87 million copies.

3: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You – Bryan Adams

Another movie soundtrack song, the theme from Kevin Costner fairy tale Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves holds the record for longest consecutive run at Number 1.

Bryan's classic ballad kept hold of the top spot for an incredible 16 weeks. Sixteen. If you weren't a big fan of the song, let's just say summer 1991 was a particularly tough time to be a chart fan. 1.85 million of you own this one.

4: Anything Is Possible/Evergreen – Will Young

Two for the price of one for Pop Idol winner Will Young's victory song from 2002. Evergreen was a cover of a Westlife album track, but Anything Is Possible was a new tune co-written by Cathy Dennis, who also penned Toxic for Britney and Can't Get You Out of my Head for Kylie.

5: I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston

The highest lady on our love ballad countdown is the late, great Whitney Houston. Taken from the hugely successful soundtrack of the hit movie The Bodyguard, in which Houston starred, I Will Always Love You spent 10 weeks at the top was 1992's Official Christmas Number 1.

It's well known the song was a cover of a Dolly Parton track that never charted in the UK. Two further versions have made the Top 40: a dance reinterpretation by Sarah Washington hit Number 12 in 1993, and Pop Idol finalist Rik Waller went Top 10 with his rendition in 2002. Whitney's still the one to beat, though: her version has sold 1.64 million copies.

Other notable entries

Céline Dion is the only star to snare two spots on our Top 20, cementing her place as the queen of love songs. Titanic-soundtracking My Heart Will Go On is her biggest, sailing into sixth place with 1.58 million sales. Bonus fact: My Heart Will Go On came out exactly 20 years ago this week! Not too far behind is Think Twice, Céline's first chart-topper, with 1.37 million sales at 8, one place behind Jennifer Rush's The Power of Love, which Céline herself would later cover.

Gareth Gates's 2002 version of Unchained Melody, which actually deposed Will Young from Number 1, comes in eighth with 1.35 million sales, while the highest placed song not to reach Number 1 at all is John Legend's All Of Me, also the most recent track in our countdown. It passed a million sales in 2015 – it's now on 1.25 million.

The only female group to make the Top 20 is the Spice Girls, with 1996's Christmas chart-topper 2 Become 1 on 1.14 million sales.

And just outside our Top 20, we have a few more million-selling ballads worthy of a mention: Unchained Melody makes yet another appearance, this time from original hitmakers the Righteous Brothers – thanks to its inclusion on '90s movie Ghost, while Take That make another showing at 22 with Rule The World, from the film Stardust. Also bubbling under are classics from Atomic Kitten, with Whole Again (23) and Kylie and Jason's duet Especially For You (24). Adele's Make You Feel My Love comes in 25th. Play those to us and, yes, we will marry you.